


Vices and Virtues

by chekovna



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Hockey AU, M/M, University AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chekovna/pseuds/chekovna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from swingsetindecember.tumblr.com: </p><p>where a grad student becomes a supervillain for extra credit since their doctoral committee is lowkey three of the city’s supervillains. and they meet the hero who is cute and charming and idealistic. and damn, extra credit is so not worth this. but damn, grad school is expensive and the job market is competitive </p><p> </p><p>Bucky Barnes needed that scholarship, and he needed to get in the good graces of his professors. And he would do anything for that. </p><p>Thing was, he would also do anything to get Steve Rogers to date him. And of course what Steve Rogers wanted Bucky to do the most was give up his scholarship, effectively destroying his relationship with his professors.</p><p>“There’s good in you,” Steve pressed.</p><p>“I really think all that’s in me at this point is ramen, red bull and spite,” Bucky admitted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vices and Virtues

Bucky downed his third coffee in one hour before throwing the disposable cup in the trash and walking into his film class. They were finishing up the 1967 adaptation of Tolstoy’s _Anna Karenina_. Bucky couldn’t think of a more cliché piece of literature to analyze; he had read the novel about five times in high school and saw the American adaptation when it came out. Thrice.

(He would never admit how much he loved it.)

They finished the movie in an hour, leaving the professor an entire hour to lecture- something the professor loved and Bucky thought advantageous for inducing naps.

“Your assignment over the weekend is a six page analysis on gender roles,” Dr. Pierce concluded, opening the door of the classroom and stepping aside. Bucky rubbed his face and sat up as Brock, who plays goalie position on Bucky’s hockey team, raised his hand from the back of the class. Dr. Pierce sighed. “Yes, Mr. Rumlow?” Bucky winced; once a professor knows your name, you are in deep shit.

“Do you want the thesis to focus on gender roles in _Anna Karenina_?” Brock and his group snickered, obviously meaning to annoy the professor rather than ask a legitimate question.

“No, Rumlow, I want it to be about _War and Peace_.”

Brock’s snicker dropped to make way for a look of panicked confusion, while the snicker crept its way onto Bucky’s face instead. _War and Peace was semester one, dumbass._ “Wait, really?”

Pierce smirked. “Class dismissed.”

Rumlow began muttering and looking around for answers in a frenzy. He turned to Natasha Romanov, but she just threw Brock’s copy of _Anna Karenina_ in his face as an answer and walked down the stairs and out of the classroom after flashing a grin at Bucky.

“Barnes, see me before you leave,” Pierce announced from the front of the room. Everyone in the class swiveled their heads to look at Bucky, who suddenly found himself stuck to his seat. His amused expression quickly morphed into a blank one to hide the absolute turmoil occurring in his mind. He glanced around the room and glared at all of the faces turned towards him before stuffing his book and headphones into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and running down the steps to meet the professor. Dr. Pierce shuffled some papers around in his bag for a few minutes, leaving Bucky to fidget nervously and wonder what type of shit he would have to do to get in this man’s good graces.

When Pierce finally decided Bucky had suffered enough, he turned around and flashed him a brilliant smile. “How do you feel about some extra scholarship money?”

Bucky would be lying if he said he wasn’t a slut for paid tuition.

——————————————————

 _This is not gonna be worth it,_ Bucky thought as he filled another paper cup with coffee on his way to ballet.

But damn was university expensive. And Bucky would be damned if he turned down scholarship money. Sure, he would have to take up an ‘independent project’ he previously had no intention of doing, but he would get both a scholarship and the favor of the doctoral committee.

This is what grad students’ wet dreams are made of.

Of course Bucky had to pick the school where the city’s most notorious villains were in charge. He was all set to go straight to Russia, hell, even Germany. But no, he fell for his mother’s puppy dog eyes and had to let his emotions make him feel bad for leaving her by herself in Brooklyn. Which was pointless, because now his emotions were replaced with ramen, red bull, and spite, even if he loved his mother with every fiber of his being.

Bucky didn’t even realize he had reached his destination until he walked into a wall, and his coffee spilled all over his chest and said wall.

Scratch that. Wall was actually not a wall. It was Steve Rogers, the happiest university student Bucky had ever run into in his college career post freshman year. Bucky both hated and admired Steve’s ever present smile.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” Bucky muttered, coffee dripping all over his fingers as he looked around in vain for some napkins. Steve laughed.

Bucky wanted to punch him in his perfect teeth.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” Steve said. “Hey, Clint,” Steve called to his right. A guy coming out of the bathroom jumped and looked around for the source of the sound, smiling broadly when his eyes landed on Steve.

Bucky was astonished. Not only did Steve seemingly know everyone on campus, but his happiness was _transferable_. Or maybe Bucky was just unbelievably bitter.

“Hey, Steve!” Clint waved and started to head over before he noticed the mess and stopped in his tracks. “Oh, shit, man, let me run in and grab some paper towels.” Clint ran back into the bathroom and returned, tossing a roll to Steve.

“Thanks!” Steve’s smile seemed to grow, parallel to Bucky’s bitterness.

“No problem bro. Hey, I’ll see you at Gabriel’s later?” Clint asked, starting to walk away. He seemed to subconsciously rub the bandage on his nose every thirty seconds.

“Yeah, definitely!” Steve responded. The two waved, and Bucky stared at Clint’s retreating back until Steve waved a hand in front of his face, jolting Bucky back to reality. Bucky looked down and was alarmed to see the coffee almost completely mopped up. Steve strolled over to the trash can, and Bucky reached out an arm in a desperate attempt to save the paper cup and what droplets of caffeine remained in it as Steve threw it in -

The recycling bin. _Of course_ Steve recycles.

Steve grinned. “I saw you throw your coffee in the trash earlier. You should look into recycling.” Steve proceeded to throw the sopping wet paper towels into the recycling as well.

“Oh. Yeah. Must’ve been a little preoccupied,” Bucky muttered. Steve smiled and clapped Bucky on the back, handing him back his bag, which he never realized he had dropped.

“S’all right. We should get to class, though.” Bucky finally reoriented himself and nodded, accepting the bag. “And you should probably find another shirt to wear after class.” Steve laughed as Bucky looked down at his stained grey shirt and groaned. “The one day you decide to deviate from your black wardrobe, huh?” Steve joked. Bucky blinked in surprise at Steve’s consciousness of him.

“Ha, yeah, life’s like that, I guess. Murphy’s law and all that.” Bucky threw his bag down on the bench in the locker room and pulled off his shirt. “Sorry about your shirt,” Bucky continued, waving a hand at Steve’s normally immaculate white top.

“No worries! I always pack extra.” Steve grinned and pulled off his own shirt, throwing it into a plastic bag that he magically pulled out of his locker.

This dude was fucking _ripped_. Bucky’s eyes widened to take in the gentle giant’s eight pack. Sure, Bucky had noticed the guy’s rippling biceps beneath his too-tight t-shirts, and sure, Bucky worked with ripped women and men every day at the dojo, but Steve’s muscles were particularly… impressive.

Bucky shook himself out of his reverie when Steve pulled on a clean white one piece and tights and coughed sheepishly. Steve wore a smirk despite his obvious blush, and Bucky felt himself heating up as he turned around to pull on his own dance clothes. When Bucky turned back around he knew he definitely was not imagining Steve’s eyes quickly pulling away from Bucky to look down at the bench where he was putting on his shoes.

The two just so happened to walk into the studio at the same time.

“So, uhm, you go to Gabriel’s, right? Jiu Jitsu?” Steve asked Bucky right after warm ups.

Bucky looked up from the bar in surprise. Was this guy stalking him? “Uhm.. yeah?”

Steve laughed, obviously a little embarrassed, and Bucky found himself feeling bad. “Sorry, that must’ve sounded a little weird. I go to Gabriel’s too, and I just saw you around the dojo. I mean, I assumed, it was you, uhm-“

Bucky smiled to save the poor guy, and Steve visibly relaxed. “Yea, that was probably me.” Steve nodded. “Or my evil twin.” Steve looked up in alarm before realizing Bucky was kidding and laughed. “I’ve never seen you around, though,” Bucky said thoughtfully. As an instructor, Bucky was pretty sure he had met almost every student. Although, he really only instructed the youth classes and the Wednesday morning adult class.

“I think you teach the teen classes during my classes,” Steve said. Bucky nodded, but the conversation stopped as the instructor walked in and everyone faced front. Natasha Romanov followed, dressed in her own leotard and carrying a stack of papers. Natasha had been the TA for the past two classes, and Bucky was left wondering what the hell this girl’s major was.

————————

It was easy. Walk in, get the goods, walk out. All in time to teach tweens how to put other tweens into headlocks. It was fine.

Bucky removed the covering over his metal prosthetic arm, making it look less human and more terminator.

Yeah, he can pull this off.

He put on a face mask that covered his eyes with goggles and left only has forehead uncovered, which he totally was not paranoid about, because no one can identify you from your forehead, right? At least he wasn’t like some of those idiot ‘superheroes’ running around the city fighting crime (aka the doctoral committee funding his new scholarship), covering nothing _except_ their forehead. He swore he saw one of them without a mask _at all_.

Idiots.

He pulled his hair out of its bun, shrugged on a leather jacket, and walked across the street and into the empty jewelry store. The old man behind the counter widened his eyes and reached beneath the counter for what Bucky presumed to be a gun, but before he could do anything Bucky pulled an assault rifle out of his duffle bag and pointed it at the cases of diamond accessories before pointing it at the grandpa. The man jumped to his key and unlocked the cases, and Bucky began shoving everything into his duffle. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw the man’s shaking hands reach for an emergency button and press it before Bucky could react. Bucky hoisted his rifle up to prevent the man from going for his gun again, dumped the rest of the case’s contents into his duffle, zipped the duffle, and made a run for it.

He ran out of the store and made it halfway down the block before he heard a, “Hey! Stop right there!” Bucky didn’t turn around, but he rounded the corner into an alleyway and saw a flash of red, white, and blue before climbing the fence and ducking out of view. He climbed up a fire escape and crawled through an open window as running footsteps echoed down the alleyway. Bucky shoved his jacket into his bag, covered up his prosthetic, and jumped out the window and back into the alley when he was sure the guy was gone.

Bucky’s adrenaline was pumping in ways it hadn’t in a long time.


End file.
